Sunday, November 20, 2011

The
days are melting away quickly. I can see them go from the window near my desk,
the light drip drip dripping down the skyline. This begins at 5, at 4, now at
3:30 I have to flip on my lamp. I love the approach of winter. Suddenly the air
smells of sweet, sudden cold, of braised beef, of apple cider spiked with rum.
But I miss the light. Especially now that I’m working in an office, bound to a
desk. At least I sit by a window, where I can watch the light fade against the
pattering, frozen rain.

This week is
Thanksgiving. And then it’s my birthday. I turn 29. The punctuation mark to my
twenties. The end of a beginning. The beginning of an end. I don’t think I’ll
miss this decade. It’s been exciting and full. But I’m tired. I’d like to sink
into my life in a way that doesn’t constantly hurt. Hurt? No. I suppose I like
the movement. I like the excitement and the growth. I guess what I want is
someone to invent a new brand of makeup, one that will prevent the handful of
people who come to hear me talk about my book from asking if I’m fourteen.
You’re not? Oh, well then are you married? No? You should eat more. You’re skin and bones.

Writing a book—a
memoir—has been an empowering experience. A vulnerable one, too. Two weeks ago
I was in Detroit for a book fair, and then New York City to speak at the PublicLibrary. Last week I was in St. Louis for another book fair, and I did an event
with the New England Culinary Guild. I love talking about my book, about the
sense of smell. These events fill me with energy, make me thankful to be alive.
They also make me think about my life in a very direct manner. Why are you not a chef? I’m often asked.
The questions that follow range from small (What
did you eat for breakfast?) to large (How
did you fall in love?). There are questions about my loss of scent(Why
did you recover?), many of them coming from those with something at stake (How can I recover, too?). We often
circle around to the questions I likewise ask myself: Will you write another book?What
will it be about? The answers are there, but not always as cut and dry as
I’d like. Isn’t that always the case?

I’ve been behind on
the blog. I know and I’m sorry. I meant to be better. I was doing so well for a
while. But we all know how life gets in the way. How work gets in the way. How
sometimes maintaining sanity and health alongside a crazy schedule can be
impossible. How sometimes I wonder how I’m maintaining anything at all.

I found this recipe
in TheEssential New York Times Cookbook. I made the cake a number of weeks ago
for the first time. I brought it to a party where it really didn’t belong.
Standing next to elaborate chocolate mousse tarts and finely wrought cupcakes
garnished in candied orange peel, this little cake paled, shrinking against the
wall like that flower we’re always talking about, the one I embodied when I was
in high school. But, hey, this cake is good. Really good. It is that cut and dry.

Marcella’s pear cake
is simple. The batter consists of eggs, whole milk, sugar, flour, and a pinch
of salt. After peeling and slicing 2 pounds of pears, you add them right to the
mix, and pour the batter into a pan. Before it goes in the oven, you dot the
top with some butter, which coats and sizzles and helps to provide a nice
browned crust. Because the ingredients are so simple, the flavor of this cake
really comes from the pears. As it should.

This
cake is a lovely dessert, the punctuation mark to a simple meal. It’s also
great for breakfast, a big wedge sliced in the lingering darkness of an
almost-winter morning. I’d eat it pretty much any time, though.

½ cup breadcrumbs,
fine and dry

2 large eggs

¼ cup whole milk

1 cup sugar

Pinch salt

1 ½ cups all-purpose
flour

2 pounds Bosc pears,
ripe

2 tablespoons
unsalted butter

Place a rack on the
upper third of the oven, and then preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Butter a 9-inch cake pan, add the bread crumbs to the pan and swirl it to
distribute the crumbs evenly. Give it a little shake and turn upside down to
release the extra loose crumbs.

In a large bowl, beat
together the eggs and milk. Add the sugar and salt. Beat until well combined.
Add the flour and mix well.

Peel the pears, and
then slice them in half. Remove and discard the seeds. Cut the pear halves into
thin slices, and then add them to the bowl. Mix well. (The batter will be quite
thick.)

Now, pour the batter
into the pan. Make sure it’s evenly spread. Dot the surface of the batter with
the butter. Bake for 45 minutes. The top will be golden brown. Cool slightly
and then remove from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I had heard of
Ottolenghi before. He's a chef in London with four restaurants named after
himself and another called Nopi. He writes a column in the Guardian, which
began about vegetarian cookery and now expands much wider. The cookbook my
editor sent me was his first cookbook, a UK-version cookbook, charming with its
Britishisms: aubergine not eggplant, grams not cups. I cooked a number of
dishes—most recently a honeyed sweet potato and chickpea stew, which reminded
me that simple is great and healthy can taste far better than good. I’ve been
enamored of Ottolenghi ever since.

The other day, I went
on a cookbook-buying binge. My schedule has been so packed the last few weeks
that I haven’t had much time to cook. And since cooking is one of my favorite
ways to unwind, to relax, to push the cobwebs of anxiety out of my brain, I’ve
been feeling like my insides are tied up in knots. Even if I don’t have time to
cook, however, I could never give up those few minutes before bed when I read.
And I’ve been reading lots of cookbooks. I love it when I can get lost in a
cookbook like I would in a novel. It inspires the best kind of dreams.

Anyway. On this
cookbook-buying binge, I purchased Ottolenghi’s newest vegetarian tome: Plenty. It’s a beautiful book with a pillow-press
cover and recipes organized by vegetable. (Last night I dreamt about eggplant.)

And last weekend
Becca came to visit. She’s one of my best friends but lives in San Francisco,
so seeing each other in person is a rare delight. Her first night here I cooked
a little vegetarian feast from Plenty.
It included a salad made with roasted butternut squash, sweet spices, spicy
peppers, limes, cilantro, and a yogurt-tahini sauce. It sounds like a mouthful,
but it was pretty much perfect. I’ve been thinking about this salad so much
ever since that I made it again Friday night for some other lovely friends, who
agreed.

To make this salad,
you take a butternut squash, peel it (or not; I kind of like the crunchy
roasted skin), slice it, and roast it with a brush of oil mixed with cardamom
and allspice. When you serve it at room temperature, the squash is sprinkled
with crunchy slivers of a spicy green pepper, the herby wash of cilantro, tart
pieces of lime, and a nutty, smooth sauce. I don’t know what it is about this
salad, but it works.

For the limes: trim off the
tops and bottoms of the limes with a paring knife. Now with the limes standing stable
on a cutting board, use your knife to cut down the sides, slicing off the skin
and the white pith. Quarter the naked limes, and then cut into very thin
slices. Place these slices in a bowl, add a 1-tablespoon drizzle of olive oil
and a sprinkle of salt.

For the butternut squash:
Cut the squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Now,
cut the squash into slices – about ½ inch thick. Lay them out on a baking sheet
(Ottolenghi suggests on a piece of parchment paper).

Mix together the cardamom
and allspice in a small bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and stir. Brush
this spiced oil over the squash. Season the squash with salt. Roast for about
15 minutes, or until tender, and then let cool. (Here is where you can peel off
the skin… or not. I’ve done it both ways, and love the slight crunch when it is
left on.)

For the sauce: Whisk
together the yogurt, tahini, lime juice, and two tablespoons of water. Season
to taste with salt. (The sauce will be thick, but you want to be able to
drizzle it over the squash, so add more lime juice or water to taste to thin it
out if necessary.)

To serve: Arrange the squash
on a serving platter. Drizzle with the yogurt-tahini sauce. Spoon the lime
slices and their juice evenly over top. Scatter the chile slices. And then the
cilantro. Enjoy.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Matt and I flew
down to New Orleans—one of my favoritecities in the world, his hometown—a few
weeks ago. My mother and her boyfriend, Charley, joined us.

Stepping outside that first
morning, I inhaled the thick, warm air. It smelled like earth, like dew, like
the tropics. We weren’t in Boston anymore.

We spent the weekend
exploring. The French Quarter. The Marigny. Uptown, downtown, the Garden
District. On Sunday, we took a trip out to some plantations, their grounds lined with ancient Live Oaks. We had a lovely meal at Sylvain. And a fantastic one at NOLA. There
was a fried green tomato po’boy that kind of blew me away. A Sazerac at the
Columns Hotel. My love of beignets will never falter; especially if I continue
to eat them alongside the thick, bitter coffee served at the Café du Monde.

One afternoon a street
musician—who played the clarinet like it was a living thing, like she didn’t
just want to, but she needed to—stopped
us in our tracks. When she was joined by a little boy playing a recorder, I melted into my shoes.

I finished the long weekend
with an interview at the local NPR affiliate, and a reading at the GardenDistrict Book Shop. Talking about smell in New Orleans is especially fun,
because, well, the smells of New Orleans are especially intense. From the rich,
spicy aroma of shrimp gumbo to the rather unpleasant olfactory assault of
Bourbon Street on a Saturday night. From the sweet scent of powdered
sugar melting atop a hot beignet to the briny breeze coming off the
Mississippi River. It’s a city filled with life.

(While in the city, my mom
and Charley stayed at The McKendrick-Breaux House.
It’s on Magazine Street, in the quite-funky Lower Garden District. The
owner, Brett, is fantastic. He collects old yearbooks, and makes a mean pancake.
Need a place to stay? We highly recommend.)

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Sunday, September 25, 2011

For much of this summer I’ve been running on adrenaline, speeding along from event to event,
reading to discussion to book club, and always to day job, day job, day job.

London threw me for a
loop, though. The jet lag on top of the running on top of the events on top of
the day job… and then a wedding in Maine and a baby-naming in Cambridge and a
trip to Philadelphia… all within the course of one week? Stick a fork in me.

But of course I’m not
done.

Today I'm looking forward to an event at Stir, a demonstration kitchen and cookbook shop run by
Barbara Lynch here in Boston. It’s an open house, from 12 – 2:30pm today, and if
you’re in the area, you should definitely come, because I’d love to meet you.
And then on the 10th I’ll be in New Orleans, one of my favorite
cities on earth, to talk even more smell at the Garden District Book Shop. And
on the 13th, I’ll be at the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers,
MA. For more, see the events page on my website.

Oh, and here? I will
write more, better, soon. I promise.

I’ve been trying to
figure out what to write. I could write about the wedding I attended in Maine.
It was on an island near Brunswick. We watched the bride and groom exchange
vows as the sun set over the lagoon. Or I could write about the joy of meeting
the new baby daughter of a good friend in Cambridge. Or I could rewind even
further and write about London, and that lovely yet short trip during which I played
the tourist, ate some excellent Lebanese food, and spoke a lot on theBBC. Now
that I think of it, one moment there really stands out.

Late one afternoon, I
walked alone from my publisher’s office in Notting Hill back to my hotel in
South Kensington. Despite the warnings I’d received before my trip, the weather
in London was nice. The sun shone bright on streets of red brick buildings. As
I walked, I listened to the sounds of people speaking with accents only
familiar to me from movies, to buses rumbling their double deckerness over the wrong-way
roads. I had a few hours to kill and let my mind wander. Amid the errant musings
on clotted cream and Marmite, I thought about how far I was from home, how
strange it felt to be there, how wonderful and exhausting and insane. I was in
a different country, an unfamiliar city. But there I was, meeting people who
were moved by the same books and the same words, people who could all be
transported by the same smells. I know this sounds trite. Or silly. Or sad. But
in one moment it struck me how small the world really is. And how incredibly,
unforgivingly large.

Anyway, I’ll leave
you with a recipe. Because those have been severely lacking here in the last
few months. (This sad fact is something I plan to change.)

Friday night I
arrived home from work and grocery shopping pretty late. I didn’t start cooking
until 8:30pm. But I was determined to use a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated,
because I read Cook’s Illustrated recipes all day, and they often stick to the
meaty part of my brain. I had been doing research on the effects of salt on
vegetables and had become fixated on this recipe for Pasta alla Norma, a chunky
eggplant tomato-based sauce that takes to rigatoni like a hug.

I sipped some whiskey
(because I love a good whiskey) as I took out my knife. After the application
of salt and a stint in the microwave, I watched the diced eggplant release its
liquid. Browned in the pan, and then removed, the spongy vegetable turned out
soft and flavorful...not at all waterlogged. The sauce came together with
minced garlic and anchovies (which are salty and meaty and not fishy at all),
and crushed tomatoes from a can. First came basil, then pasta, then cheese. Matt
and I ate while watching an old episode of The Sopranos. It was everything I
hoped it would be.

First, place the diced
eggplant in a medium-sized bowl and toss with 1 teaspoon of salt. Then, line a
microwave-safe plate with coffee filters. (The filters will absorb more of the
eggplant’s excessive moisture than, say, a paper towel). Place the eggplant on
the plate in a single layer, and microwave on high power for about 10 minutes. The eggplant
should be dry and kind of shrively. Let cool a bit.

Now put the eggplant back in
the bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Heat another tablespoon of oil
in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant and cook
until nicely browned and tender. This should take about 10 minutes. Be sure not
to stir too frequently, or the eggplant will break apart. Once cooked, remove
the eggplant from the skillet and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of
oil to the skillet along with the garlic, anchovies, and pepper flakes. Keep
the pan off the heat for 30 seconds or so, using the residual heat to cook
these delicate ingredients very lightly, not allowing them to burn. Then set
the skillet back over the burner and add the tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and let
cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a big pot
of water to boil. Add salt (2 tablespoons or so), and cook pasta until al dente. Reserve a half-cup
of pasta water before draining the pasta and then placing the noodles a big serving bowl.

Add the eggplant back to the
skillet filled with sauce, and stir gently. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Now, add
the basil. Season to taste with salt. Add the sauce to the pasta, and stir to
coat. Drizzle a glug of olive oil over the top if you like. Serve, sprinkled with a healthy handful of cheese.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Friday, September 09, 2011

I walked to work this
morning, a long stroll through the lifting fog. It’s been a hazy week of rain.
The moment I left my apartment and shut the door behind me, I could smell burnt
toast and musty rug. Outside, I smelled the lingering rain on the sidewalk, a
whiff of the Dove conditioner in my hair. As I walked, there was a hint of
earth and dead, early-autumn leaves. A hot metal twang to the subway car
rumbling by. I could smell the flowery perfume of a woman on her way to work,
the coffee from a café with an open door, and the familiar wet scent of a dog
who had just rolled around in the grass. I fly to London tomorrow. I wonder
what smells that will bring.